Dinner tonight was a new experience. There were candles. It all started because I’m reading the book, “The Intentional Family“. It’s written by a family therapist and talks about how families can greatly benefit from cultivating family rituals. These rituals can be anything from family dinners, holidays, couple time, vacations, etc.
So one of the rituals I am working on is our dinner time. I would say we already had a pretty good thing going. We sat and ate as a family I would say 70% of the week and I cooked. After reading the book, I realized that I really wanted this time to be a ritual for family connecting. Before the book, I don’t think were very intentional about making it a time for this connectedness, I guess it I thought it would just happen on it’s own.
So the little changes I have made include: 1) the boys help me with dinner and to set the table, including lighting candles and putting on special dinner music 2) when are eating we try to ask about each others day (the best and worst) 3) The boys help me clear the table and if they tried all their food they get to blow out one of the candles. The candle thing (suggested in the book) totally makes a difference in the mood of dinner. I can’t describe it, maybe b/c the lights are dimmer..it makes it special and it’s total incentive for the boys to eat their food so they can blow them out. Go figure candles.
Some other ideas I want to do is to incorporate music themed to the the dinner (ie mexican=Bueno Vista Social Club– love it) or having a themed topic of discussion, but that would be when Henry can talk more I guess. I imagine the boys helping with this when they are older – like going to the our play list in search of the perfect music to go with Chicken Tetrazzini. Or have the boys think of a great question to bring to dinner tonight like, “If you could be any flavor Kool-Aid what would it be?” I just want to make our family dinner a time everyone looks forward to and b/c it is a special time, all members feel loved through it. I know I have high hopes, we’ll see what happens.
The other ritual we’re working on is daily time for John and I to connect. So we are trying to set aside 15 minutes after the kids go to bed to sit on our porch and talk. That’s all I got on that for now b/c we just started to be more intentional about it.
